PHILOSOPHY and RELIGION in GERMAN IDEALISM Studies in German Idealism

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION IN GERMAN IDEALISM Studies in German Idealism Series Editor: Reinier Munk, Leiden University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Advisory Editorial Board: Frederick Beiser, Syracuse University, U.S.A. George di Giovanni, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Helmut Holzhey, University of Zürich, Switzerland Detlev Pätzold, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Robert Solomon, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, U.S.A. VOLUME 3 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION IN GERMAN IDEALISM Edited by WILLIAM DESMOND Catholic University of Louvain ERNST-OTTO ONNASCH Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and PAUL CRUYSBERGHS Catholic University of Louvain KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW eBook ISBN: 1-4020-2325-1 Print ISBN: 1-4020-2324-3 ©2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. Print ©2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht All rights reserved No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Springer's eBookstore at: http://ebooks.springerlink.com and the Springer Global Website Online at: http://www.springeronline.com This book is dedicated to Ludwig Heyde (†) CONTENTS Preface ix WILLIAM DESMOND, ERNST-OTTO ONNASCH and PAUL CRUYSBERGHS Introduction xi WALTER JAESCHKE Philosophy of Religion after the Death of God 1 MARTIN MOORS Kant on Religion in the Role of Moral Schematism 21 DANIEL BREAZEALE “Wishful Thinking.” Concerning Fichte’s Interpretation of the Postulates of Reason in his Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung (1792) 35 LUDWIG HEYDE (†) The Unsatisfied Enlightenment. Faith and Pure Insight in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit 71 STEPHEN HOULGATE Religion, Morality and Forgiveness in Hegel’s Philosophy 81 SANDER GRIFFIOEN The Finite does not Hinder. Hegel’s Philosophy of Christian Religion placed against the Backdrop of Kant’s Theory of the Sublime 111 TOM ROCKMORE Hegel on Reason, Faith and Knowledge 125 WILLIAM DESMOND Religion and the Poverty of Philosophy 139 vii viii PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION IN GERMAN IDEALISM Contributing Authors 171 Index 173 PREFACE This book contains the selected proceedings of a conference on Religion in German Idealism which took place in Nijme- gen (Netherlands) in January 2000. The conference was or- ganized by the Centre of German Idealism, which co-ordi- nates the research on classical German philosophy in the Netherlands and in Belgium. Generous support of the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has made this conference possible. A few months after the conference Ludwig died, and this circumstance unexpectedly delayed efforts to bring the proceedings of the conference to pub- lished form. We are now happy to present those proceedings, dedicated to the memory of the founding father of the Centre. It was a great joy to work with Ludwig; it was an even greater joy to be reckoned amongst his friends. It was part of Ludwig’s distinctive charisma that he was able to combine friendship together with collaboration in philosophical and scholarly work. William Desmond Ernst-Otto Onnasch Paul Cruysberghs ix INTRODUCTION WILLIAM DESMOND, ERNST-OTTO ONNASCH and PAUL CRUYSBERGHS 1 The studies in this book testify to the intimate relation of philosophy and religion in German idealism, a relation not also devoid of tensions, and indeed conflicts. Idealism gave expression to a certain affirmation of the autonomy of philosophical reason, but this autonomy was one that tried to take into account the importance of religion. Sometimes the results of this claim to autonomy moved towards criticism of religion. Sometimes the results claimed to be more con- structive in reforming the relation of philosophy and religion. Sometimes the outcome was a new questioning of philosophy itself and a different appreciation of religion. All of these possibilities are represented in the studies of this book. It will be helpful first to note a number of crucial considerations that serve to define the problematic situation of religion in that era, and the relation of philosophical reflection to religion. We might begin with some more general considerations before turning to more specific details. Many of these considerations still define our current situation, and point to the continued significance of a study of German idealism. Three major considerations can be noted: first, relative to the devalued thereness of nature in a mechanistic world picture; second, relative to the human being as autonomous and claiming to be an end in self; third, relative to the sense of divine transcendence as other to human autonomy. First, relative to nature, we encounter the tendency of the objectifying sciences (then Newtonian mechanism) to lead to a valueless thereness, shorn of immanent traces of the divine. One thinks then, by contrast, of the appeal of Spino- xi xii PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION IN GERMAN IDEALISM zism and pantheism: these we might see as reactions against the valueless objectivity of mechanistic science, and as efforts to try to regain some sense of the immanence of the divine. Think here also of the manner in which Hegel and his generation were captive in different ways to the dream of Greece. Greece held before the gaze of that generation a vision of immanent wholeness in which nature was saturated with ambiguous but real signs of the divine. Second, there is the central concern with the human being as an end in itself, partly defined over against the otherwise valueless thereness of nature. It is interesting to re- mark on the way these two sides proceed in tandem: nature hugely objectified; the human being more and more subjec- tified. For if there are no traces of the divine in nature, or no presence of inherent value, then human beings alone, it seems, can take on this function of being ends in themselves. This is very clear in Kant where the human being alone is an end in self in a nature otherwise devoid of such ends. Consult the last half of the Critique of Judgment where this is central. There the issue is fundamentally the possibility of a theology in such a nature and with respect to such a vision of human morality. As one recalls, Kant alone allows the possibility of an ethical theology, in admittedly a very qualified sense. Perhaps the difficulty here continues and masks the per- plexity as experienced earlier by Pascal: the human experi- ence of fear and solitude in the immensity of the strange cosmic spaces. Unlike Kant, Pascal does not find his heart filled with wonder at the starry skies above. He finds silence and emptiness. And indeed there is a sense in which Kant did too, in that apart from man, there seems to be no inherent end in nature. Perhaps Kant masked from himself his proximity to the pathos of Pascal with a moral consolation. Others will not be so morally kind on themselves or on such a valueless nature. Nor indeed did Pascal draw consolation from the moral law within. In the human heart he also found horror and something monstrous: wretchedness, though also grandeur. Pascal was a mathematical genius who yet had finesse for the excesses of the human heart. And it is true that the times we are dealing with here found INTRODUCTION xiii more peace in the vision of the human being as morally autonomous than as thus excessive in the Pascalian sense. But the excess will reassert itself in due course. Third, bound up with a dedivinized nature and a self- affirming autonomous humanity, there follows the problematic place of all appeals to transcendence. This is perhaps the nub of the issue with respect to religion and its relation to philosophy. The culture of Enlightenment was a culture of reason, which affirms the native power of the human mind to accomplish through itself its quest for truth. This seemed evident, not only in the increasing autonomy claimed by the particular sciences, but in the most radical claim made for philosophical reason itself, as the epitome of reason that determines itself and that in seeking its own justification finally must be self-justifying. Does not this seem the very essence of philosophy: autonomous reason, determining through itself its own resources to know, and thus also determining for itself the proper paths and suc- cesses possible for truth? Not only does this create the more obvious tension between autonomous reason and theology as appealing to faith, it also shapes a view of the proper culture of humanity. If self-determining reason is the highest human power, all of human culture is to be seen in its light; and hence also any appeal to a transcendence that is other to our autonomy has to justify itself before the tribunal of that reason. But in the nature of the case here, any appeal to transcendence must come before that tribunal making a case for itself that departs from the terms on which autonomy de- cides the case. Any such appeal to transcendence clearly comes before this tribunal already hobbled by its reference to the ultimate as beyond human autonomy and self- determination. From the viewpoint of this autonomous reason, every such “beyond” must appear suspect. One might suggest indeed that there is not only a tension between the respective emphases of autonomy and transcendence; there may well be a certain antinomy between them. If transcendence is absolute, one will have to relativ- ize autonomy. If autonomy is absolute, one will have to rela- tivize transcendence. If a certain form of being religious is xiv PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION IN GERMAN IDEALISM tempted to the former possibility, a certain form of philosophy is tempted towards the latter.

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